Is SnoozeShade safe? What we test, and what the results were
Is SnoozeShade safe? It is the question we are asked most, and it deserves a real answer rather than a reassuring one.
Every SnoozeShade is designed to the strictest standards we could find, then independently laboratory tested to confirm it. This page sets out what has been tested, against which standards, and what the results were.
How we measure sun protection, and why we changed it
We have recently changed the way we measure sun protection, on the advice of experts in the field.
Like most baby sun products, we have always quoted a UPF rating. It is a genuine, independently tested result for our fabric and we stand behind it. But UPF is a clothing standard, written for fabric worn against the skin.
A SnoozeShade sits above and around your baby rather than against them. There is now a standard written specifically for shade fabrics: the Australian standard AS 4174, which gives a UVE rating, short for Ultraviolet Effectiveness. That is the standard we have chosen to move to, and it is a better description of what a shade actually does.
Every SnoozeShade pram and pushchair shade is tested to AS 4174 by ARPANSA, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, at their government laboratory.
🏅 Rated Most Effective
Most Effective is the highest sun protection category there is for shade fabrics, and it starts at 95%. Our shade fabric blocks 97% of UV in a double layer.
On the shades with a zip-up see-out panel, that single layer blocks over 80% of UV and is rated Effective.
Our cot range is an indoor sleep product and is not sold for sun protection, so it sits outside this.
What makes SnoozeShade safer
We do not cut corners to save money or to follow a trend. Every element is chosen with safety first.
Short straps, to minimise strangulation risk
Heavy-duty zips that will not break or become choking hazards
Baby-safe certified poppers, the only ones in use in this product category, on our Deluxe products
All fabrics and components tested for toxins including lead, phthalates, azo dyes, cadmium and formaldehyde
EziBreez® air-permeable mesh, which exceeds airflow safety benchmarks
Flame-resistant material that self-extinguishes
Colourfast and stable through repeated washing
Air has to move, and ours does
A shade is only safe if air can flow through it. That is the whole reason EziBreez® exists.
SnoozeShade is independently laboratory tested to British Standard BS EN ISO 9237, the air permeability standard for textile fabrics. The standard does not set a pass mark, it defines how the measurement is made. Our mesh tests between 424 and 800 cm³/s/cm².
For context: fabrics under 10 cm³/s/cm² are considered low air permeability, 10 to 100 is moderate, and anything over 100 is high. Our mesh sits a long way into the highly air-permeable category.
This is also why the standard hot weather advice about prams is not an argument against SnoozeShade. The Lullaby Trust advises against covering a pram with blankets, cloths or any cover that stops air flowing, because of the risk of a baby getting too hot and because you cannot easily see your baby or check their temperature. Both points are about airflow and visibility, and both are exactly what SnoozeShade was designed around.
Visibility is why we put sneak-a-peek zips on our shades. You can look in on your baby quickly and easily, as often as you like, without unfastening the shade and without disturbing them. Whatever shade you use, keep checking your baby by feeling their chest or the back of their neck, and keep them out of direct sunlight where you can.
Going beyond what is required
Rebreathing and suffocation
In 2021 we voluntarily commissioned testing from a respected laboratory for carbon dioxide rebreathing risk, which is associated with SIDS, and for direct suffocation risk if a baby's face were fully covered.
SnoozeShade achieved the lowest possible risk level in both. No specific test of this kind exists for products like ours, so we commissioned it as an extra layer of assurance.
Four markets, one round of testing
In 2024 our full range was independently tested against safety and chemical regulations for the UK, the EU, the United States and Australia.
That covered chemical safety, mechanical safety, flammability, packaging and labelling. The result was a pass across every test.
Recognition
SnoozeShade is the only range of baby sun and sleep shades approved by the Infant & Nursery Products Alliance of Australia (INPAA). INPAA does not simply follow safety standards, it helps create them. It runs its own carbon dioxide rebreathing standard, and its product safety framework is published by Standards Australia as the definitive Product Safety Framework handbook. Cara is INPAA's UK baby safety ambassador.
In 2025 SnoozeShade won the Tried & True category, On The Go sub-category, at the inaugural INPAA Baby Safety Awards, judged by an independent expert panel on safety outcomes, design and innovation, real-world usability, and evidence over time.
Separately, our sun protection is approved by the Melanoma International Foundation. INPAA approval is about overall infant safety; the Melanoma International Foundation approval is about sun protection.
The detail, if you want it
Why I am obsessive about this
From Cara, inventor of SnoozeShade:
"When my daughter Holly was around 18 months old, she had a febrile convulsion. It happens when a baby's temperature spikes suddenly, usually triggered by a virus, and once a child has had one, getting too hot becomes a trigger for another. From that day I was permanently alert to her overheating, and I have never lost it.
That is not why I invented SnoozeShade. I invented it because nap time was running our lives and I wanted mine back. But it is exactly why I am obsessive about heat and airflow, and why this was never going to be a product that traps air around a baby.
While I was developing it I researched baby product safety properly, and I was shocked at what I found. Most baby accessories only need to meet safety standards suitable for three-year-olds, on the assumption that a parent is handling them. That was not good enough for me. I wanted SnoozeShade to be safe enough for a newborn to be in direct contact with, so I went and found the strictest standards there were: the ones written for toys intended for babies from birth. More than 16 years later, that is still how we do it."
Full list of safety standards we meet or exceed
UK and EU
BS EN 71-1:2014+A1:2018, toy safety, mechanical and physical properties
BS EN 71-2:2011+A1:2014, toy safety, flammability
EN 71-3:2013+A3:2018, migration of certain elements
CEN/TR 13387, safety guidelines for child use and care articles
BS EN ISO 9237:1995, air permeability of textile fabrics
BS EN 13758-1:2002+A1:2007, UV protection in textiles (our historical UPF testing, now superseded by AS 4174 as explained above)
BS EN ISO 105-X12:2002, colour fastness to rubbing
BS EN ISO 6330:2012, 5077:2008 and 3759:2011, washing dimensional stability
BS EN ISO 14184-1:2011, formaldehyde, not detected
REACH Regulation (EC) 1907/2006 Annex XVII, cadmium, lead and azo dyes, not detected, plus phthalates, PAHs, aromatic amines, nickel release and more
Regulation (EU) 1007/2011, textile fibre content
UK General Product Safety Regulations, producer and manufacturer labelling
United States
16 CFR 1500.48, sharp points
16 CFR 1500.49, sharp metal
16 CFR 1500.44, flammability, did not ignite
16 CFR 1501, choking hazards for under threes
16 CFR 1303, lead in paint
16 CFR 1307, phthalates content
CPSIA Sections 101, 101(f)(1), 101(a)(2), 102 and 103
California Proposition 65, phthalates, lead, cadmium
Australia
AS 4174, knitted and woven shade fabrics, our current sun protection standard
Australian Competition and Consumer Act 2010, Consumer Protection Notice No. 11 of 2011
AS 2622, textile fibre content labelling
Why do you not have a CE mark?
SnoozeShade does not carry a CE mark, and it does not need one. CE marking applies to specific product categories, toys among them, and a sun and sleep shade is not one of them.
We chose to test against toy safety standards anyway, because they are written for products a newborn comes into direct contact with. That was a deliberate safety decision, not a regulatory requirement, and it is why those standards appear on our list.
Still have a question?
There is no such thing as a silly question when it comes to your baby. Get in touch here and we will answer it properly.
Further reading
